The Royal Bank of Scotland or RBS website design is based on the same bank platform as used by Natwest. The RBS website however, still provides its own services, products, and fees. The website analysis on the RBS website has revealed advanced e-commerce functionality including that of the ability to view statements of up to six months for accounts such as the current, credit card, and savings accounts online.

Many banking sites take a long time to load. Fortunately the RBS website is not one of them. Not only does the home page load fast, but also the child pages. Branding is important for financial services and as such it is vital that the RBS website reflects the familiar brand logo and colors. The RBS website design skillfully integrates the main colors of the Royal Bank of Scotland and the logo to ensure this.

Another factor that should be considered when designing a banking website is that customers will expect a high level of professionalism. By ensuring that there no grammar or style, and spelling mistakes are present, that the language reflects an understanding of the bank clientele and that the overall appearance of the RBS website emphasizes its focus on professional service, the Royal Bank of Scotland succeeds in building credibility and thus wins an important round in Internet marketing strategy.

Security is a major concern for anyone that does online transactions and even more so when it comes to online banking. The website analysis shows that the Royal Bank of Scotland through the RBS website takes great care to instill confidence in their security measures as the privacy statement, terms of conditions statement, and online help function list. There is also a security link where the user can obtain an overview of all the security measures in place to protect against fraud and confidentiality breaches. As such clients can do their online banking at the RBS website with confidence secure in the knowledge that the Royal Bank of Scotland has taken the required steps to ensure safe transacting at their website.

Other concerns for online bank users are that of orientation, accessibility, and assistance. The RBS website is packed with helpful guidance for every category, possible question, and need for assistance. A search facility is present for quick location of information. The site map doubles up as a search engine optimization (SEO) tool and as an orientation tool to help users find the exact pages they need hassle free. In addition help is just an email away and support can be obtained by registered users. There is the much required help with login, statements, and more. The home link is ever present to ensure that the client doesn’t have to use the back button which can lead to an expired page.

Since users don’t want to spend hours waiting for pages to load when they just want to view their balance or make a quick transfer from one account to another, the fact that few images are used, is a bonus point as this ensures faster loading of the web pages at the RBS website.

It is of paramount importance that an online banking website design caters for a wide range of browsers. The RBS website supports several browsers and the designers went through the trouble of testing the website on the browsers listed in their accessibility statement to ensure correct working on the most used browsers.

There are times when a mouse is simply not available and as such the user needs to know that he or she can still access the banking services of the RBS website. Fortunately the website design allows for browsing through specific access keys as listed in the accessibility statement of the site.

Navigation is further aided through a user friendly CSS menu on top of the RBS website. The current page button is color coded (orange) and the user thus aided in orientation. There are minimum levels to click through ensuring fast access to the required pages. The Royal Bank of Scotland makes it even easier for its users by dividing its banking services into:

Each section has its own unique services, comprehensive information and tools specifically catering for the user in that category. There are no shortages of useful functions such as the carbon offset calculators, verification services, credit report services, and more.

In terms of search engine optimization (SEO) as part of Internet marketing the website analysis also showed the RBS website complies with sound SEO policies. The Alt tags, text links, logical flow of information, site map, enough wording, correct keyword density and the use of title tags all contribute to its high page rank at Google of 7. The website also has a tremendous amount of back links from the major search engines and as such the reasons for its high ranking are obvious. If you are looking for a bank that offers an excellent online facility, the Royal Bank of Scotland will not disappoint through its RBS website.